Mindfulness of Emotion
At times we can feel overwhelmed by the intensity of emotion that we may be feeling. This might make us want to distract ourselves to avoid discomfort. What we might find is that the emotion continues to linger in the background and we feel it again soon enough.
One strategy for helping us to accept, sit with and transform the intensity of an emotion we are experiencing is called Mindfulness of Emotion.
We can achieve this by following the below steps:
Close your eyes, take some deep breaths and tune into your body and emotions. Notice what emotion/emotions you may be feeling and where in your body you may be feeling it.
Begin to describe the feeling:
What colour would you give it?
What shape would you give it? (e.g. cloud/spiky ball/bouncy ball)
What is it doing? (e.g. still, vibrating, bouncing around)
How heavy is it?
Sit with this visual of the feeling and tell the feeling that it's okay that it is there and that it can stay for as long as it needs to before it's ready to go.
We can then tell the feeling that we are going to give it some more space and visualise the space around it growing bigger and the object getting smaller in comparison. Sit with this visualisation.
By following these steps what you may find is that the intensity of the emotion you are feeling eases and you feel more balanced and grounded.
We hope you enjoy giving Mindfulness of Emotion a go!
